Book Review And Followup For "Off The Rails In Phnom Phen" By Amit Gilboa

Shortly after settling down in Phuket in July of 2000, I took a job teaching English at a local language school. I found an advertisement in the local paper calling for native English speakers to teach to children. I had no experience, nor did I have any qualifications, however as I had suspected, the only requirements were a nice smile and a dress shirt, with the ability to string a few English words together.

It did not take me long to realize that my fellow teachers were not professional educators with university qualifications, to the contrary, they were mostly social misfits with a heavy addiction to drugs, alcohol and sex. During my first week at work I was introduced to a wild Englishman by the name of "Kurt", and immediately we hit it off. We became partners in crime, spending most of our time either drinking and womanizing, or plotting to do so. Kurt had been in Thailand for a few years at this time, and he could speak Thai near fluently. He was also quite a handsome devil, well spoken and bursting with confidence, a real ladies man.

Kurt arrived in Phuket near penniless, and he had long since burned all his bridges back home in England. After a few months he was able to earn enough money teaching, to sustain himself and get back on his feet. During this time we would spend many nights drinking in the beer bars and discotheques of Patong Beach. With what we earned on a teacher's salary, we could not afford to pay the bar fines and take the girls from the bars. Kurt was charming enough to convince most women that their evening would be better spent with him, earning nothing, as apposed to going off with a rich bloke that they didn't really like. When this failed, he often decided to simply "dine and dash".

Things began to go sour for Kurt shortly after he got involved with a bar girl named Noi. He had fallen head over heels for her, but as they say in Phuket "you can take a girl out of the bar, but you can never take the bar out of the girl". Shortly after Noi left him he lost his job, he was again penniless, with nowhere to go, and nobody to turn to. Because I was also living off a meager teachers salary, I was unable to offer much help, aside from the occasional meal that he would otherwise have gone without.

His only income was coming from a private student that he had met previously at the language school. He had told me that she was a wealthy middle aged Thai woman in her 50s, who had fancied him and invited him to give her private lessons. Apparently her English lessons would take place in the swimming pool at her home when her husband was away at work. Kurt never told me about the specifics, only that he had to do whatever he could to earn money, and she paid well. This weekly gig was only enough to feed him for a day and keep him drunk for an evening, nothing that he could live on.

Finally after searching for work for almost a month, with his rent past due for nearly two months, he was able to secure work at a school in Northern Thailand. Now the only problem was to get enough money to arrange transportation to Northern Thailand, and just enough to live off until his first paycheck. It would only require a few hundred dollars at the most, and I offered him the money, but he refused.

He had placed an advertisement in the local paper, offering his services as an English instructor. He was contacted the following day by an older German bloke that was looking to have his girlfriend take English lessons. The German was an obvious sex tourist, a sloppy, fat, pig of a man in his late 40s, with a 19 year old girlfriend that he was unable to communicate with. When they arrived for the first lesson, Kurt arranged for the German to pay the first month in advance, and then suggested they begin the first lesson immediately.

He explained that his apartment was set up as a classroom (a bold faced lie!). While the German bloke waited at a coffee shop across the street, Kurt took his girlfriend back to his apartment and seduced her. He told me every detail, proudly exclaiming that it took him less than 5 minutes to get her naked. It was easy to see why the poor girl would be attracted to Kurt, he was far more attractive than the filthy sex tourist who was paying for her English lessons.

That night I went out for a beer with Kurt, it was to say farewell, it would be the last time I would see him. He left Phuket with the 5000THB that the German had paid him for (servicing his girlfriend), and he was headed to Northern Thailand. I have been in contact with him from time to time over the years, and I understand that after a few months of teaching in Northern Thailand, he was back on his feet again and has never looked back.

Kurt is just one of hundreds of people that I came to be friends with during my time in Phuket, however his story is one that I will always remember. It was the first time I saw a man down and out in Thailand, but it certainly would not be the last.